His mother turned around, but on perceiving him sprang back with a cry of horror.
"What do you want with me, ugly dwarf?" cried she. "Be off with you! I will not stand such tricks!"
"But, mother, what is the matter with you?" asked Jacob, in a frightened way. "You are certainly not well; why do you chase your son away from you?"
"I have already told you to go your way," replied Hannah, angrily. "You will get no money from me by your jugglery, you hateful monster!"
"Surely, God has taken away her understanding!" said the child, sorrowfully, to himself. "What means shall I take to get her home? Dear mother, only be reasonable now; just look at me once closely; I am really your son, your Jacob."
"This joke is being carried too far," cried Hannah to her neighbor. "Only look at this hateful dwarf, who stands there and keeps away all my customers, besides daring to make a jest of my misfortune. He says to me, 'I am your son, your Jacob,'--the impudent fellow!"
Upon that Hannah's neighbors all got up and began to abuse him as wickedly as they knew how--and market-women, as you know, understand it pretty well--ending by accusing him of making sport of the misfortune of poor Hannah, whose son, beautiful as a picture, had been stolen from her seven years ago: and they threatened to fall upon him in a body, and scratch his eyes out, if he did not at once go away.
Poor little Jacob knew not what to make of all this. Was it not true that he had gone to the market as usual with his mother, early this morning? that he had helped her arrange the fruits, and afterwards had gone with the old woman to her house, had there eaten a little soup, had indulged in a short nap, and come right back again? And now his mother and her neighbors talked about seven years, and called him an ugly dwarf! What, then, had happened to him?
When he saw that his mother would not hear another word from him, tears sprang into his eyes, and he went sadly down the street to the stall where his father mended shoes. "Now I will see," thought he, "whether my father will not know me. I will stop in the door-way and speak to him." On arriving at the shoemaker's stall, he placed himself in the door-way, and looked in. The master was so busily occupied with his work, that he did not notice him at first, but when by chance he happened to look at the door, he let shoes, thread and awl drop to the ground, and exclaimed in affrights "In heaven's name!--what is that? what is that?"